Editing Amok syndrome (section)

== Historical and cross-cultural comparisons ==
[[File:Amok, furious madness of the Malays. The thorns penetrate the flesh and paralyze him.jpg|thumb|A ''pengamok'' being captured, 1883. The thorns on the pole paralyze him.]]
Early travelers in Asia sometimes describe a kind of military amok, in which soldiers apparently facing inevitable defeat suddenly burst into a frenzy of violence which so startled their enemies that it either delivered victory or at least ensured what the soldier in that culture considered an honourable death, for a similar case occurred at the [[Battle of Margarana]] on 1946 in Bali, where this refers to ''[[puputan]]'', a [[Balinese language|Balinese]] term referring to a [[mass suicide]] ritual carried out during war rather than surrender to the enemy.<ref>{{cite book|title=The Rough Guide to Bali and Lombok|first1=Lucy|last1=Ridout|first2=Lesley|last2=Reader|publisher=Rough Guides Ltd|edition=4|year=2002|isbn=978-1858289021|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=JlcL6HeY-uAC&pg=PA496}}</ref>

[[Tomé Pires]] in his Suma Oriental, observed the custom of the [[Javanese people]] in 1513:<ref name=":3">{{citation-attribution|{{Cite book|last=Cortesão|first=Armando|url=https://archive.org/details/McGillLibrary-136385-182|title=The Suma oriental of Tomé Pires : an account of the East, from the Red Sea to Japan, written in Malacca and India in 1512-1515; and, the book of Francisco Rodrigues, rutter of a voyage in the Red Sea, nautical rules, almanack and maps, written and drawn in the East before 1515 volume I|publisher=The Hakluyt Society|year=1944|location=London}}}}</ref>{{rp|xxv, 176}}<blockquote>There are among the nations no men who are ''amocos'' like those in the Javanese nation. ''Amocos'' means men who are determined to die (to run amuck). Some of them do it when they are drunk, and these are the common people; but the noblemen are much in the habit of challenging each other to duels, and they kill each other over their quarrels; and this is the custom of the country. Some of them kill themselves on horseback, and some of them on foot, according to what they have decided.</blockquote>[[Duarte Barbosa]] in 1514 recorded the Javanese people in [[Malacca City|Malacca]]:<ref name=":42">{{Cite book |last=Stanley |first=Henry Edward John |url=https://archive.org/details/descriptionofcoa00barbrich/page/n7/mode/2up |title=A Description of the Coasts of East Africa and Malabar in the Beginning of the Sixteenth Century by Duarte Barbosa |publisher=The Hakluyt Society |year=1866}}</ref>{{Rp|194}}<blockquote>They have very good arms and fight valiantly. There are some of them who if they fall ill of any severe illness, vow to God that if they remain in health they will of their own accord seek another more honourable death for his service, and as soon as they get well they take a dagger in their hands and go out into the streets and kill as many persons as they meet, both men, women and children, in such wise that they go like mad dogs, killing until they are killed. These are called ''amuco''. And as soon as they see them begin this work, they cry out saying, ''amuco'', ''amuco'', in order that people may take care of themselves, and they kill them with dagger and spear thrusts. Many of these Javans live in this city with wives and children and property.</blockquote>

This form of amok appears to resemble the Scandinavian ''[[Berserker]]'', ''mal de pelea'' (Puerto Rico), and [[iich'aa]] (Navaho).<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.as.ua.edu/ant/ant100/pdf/MedicalAnthropology.pdf |title=Medical Anthropology: Culture-bound syndromes |access-date=29 April 2009}}{{dead link|date=June 2016|bot=medic}}{{cbignore|bot=medic}}</ref> The [[Zulu people|Zulu]] battle trance is another example of the tendency of certain groups to work themselves up into a killing frenzy.
[[File:Native Policemen in Java 1911.jpg|thumb|Native policemen in Java, 1911. The man in the center is holding a ''sangga mara'', a 2-forked pole for catching ''amok''.]]
In contemporary [[Indonesia]], the term ''amok'' (''amuk'') generally refers not to individual violence, but to frenzied violence by mobs. Indonesians now commonly use the term 'gelap mata' (literally 'darkened eyes') to refer to individual amok. [[Laurens van der Post]] experienced the phenomenon in the East Indies and wrote in 1955:

{{blockquote|'Gelap mata', the Dark Eye, is an expression used in Sumatra and Java to describe a curious and disturbing social phenomenon. Socially speaking, the Malays, Sumatrans and Javanese are the best behaved people I have ever encountered. On the surface they are an extremely gentle, refined, submissive people. In fact the word 'Malay' comes from 'malu', 'gentle', and gentleness is a quality prized above all others among the Malays and their neighbours. In their family life, in their submission to traditional and parental authority, in their communal duties, they are among the most obedient people on earth. But every now and then something very disturbing happens. A man who has behaved in this obliging manner all his life and who has always done his duty by the outside world to perfection, suddenly finds it impossible to keep doing so. Overnight he revolts against goodness and dutifulness.<ref>[[Laurens van der Post|van der Post, Laurens]], ''The Dark Eye in Africa'' (London, 1955), pp. 51–52</ref>}}

In the [[Philippines]], ''amok'' also means unreasoning murderous rage by an individual. In 1876, the Spanish governor-general of the Philippines [[José Malcampo]] coined the term ''[[juramentado]]'' for the behavior (from ''juramentar'' – "to take an oath"), surviving into modern [[Philippine languages]] as ''huramentado''.<ref name=Hurley14>{{cite book |last=Hurley |first=Vic |chapter=Chapter 14: Juramentados and Amuks |chapter-url=http://www.nikhef.nl/~tonvr/keris/keris2/swish/swk2-14.html |title=Swish of the Kris; The Story of the Moros |url=http://www.nikhef.nl/~tonvr/keris/keris2/swish/index.html |publisher=E.P. Hutton |access-date=17 April 2011 |year=1936 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20050215042345/http://www.nikhef.nl/~tonvr/keris/keris2/swish/swk2-14.html |archive-date=15 February 2005}}</ref> It has historically been linked with the [[Moro people]] of [[Mindanao]], particularly in the [[Sulu Archipelago]], in connection with societal and cultural pressures.<ref name=Tarling231>{{cite book |last=Tarling |first=Nicholas |title=The Cambridge History of Southeast Asia: The Nineteenth and Twentieth centuries |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=pBfsaw64rjMC&pg=PA231 |publisher=[[Cambridge University Press]] |year=1992 |access-date=25 May 2009 |page=231 |isbn=0-521-35506-0}}</ref> A similar term to ''gelap mata'' in the Philippines is called ''pagdilim ng paningin,'' which translates literally to  "darkening of vision". The term is commonly used to refer to a situation where a person is consumed by anger.

According to the [[Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition|''Encyclopædia Britannica'' Eleventh Edition]], some notable cases have occurred among the [[Rajput]]s. In 1634, the eldest son of the [[raja]] of [[Jodhpur]] ran amok at the court of [[Shah Jahan]], failing in his attack on the emperor, but killing five of his officials. During the 18th century, again, at [[Hyderabad, Sindh|Hyderabad]] (Sind), two envoys, sent by the Jodhpur chief in regard to a quarrel between the two states, stabbed the prince and twenty-six of his suite before they themselves fell.<ref>{{EB1911|inline=y|wstitle=Amuck, Running|volume=1|page=899}}</ref>